[G] Kyo’s HotS PvZ Skytoss Guide

Hello and welcome to my guide on how to effectively play Skytoss in HotS! I’ve been attempting many variants of this over the past week and so far this is what I’ve come across to be the most safe, well transitioned build. I figure because I’ve been doing quite well with it on HotS ladder I’d share it with everyone, and hopefully you can see the strengths Protoss have at the moment in HotS. I also do have a unique PvP build I’ve been working on as many on HotS who know me may have seen; however, I feel that build is not solid enough to warrant a guide just yet, though I may if enough people have an interest. I included a single replay on the build in the replay pack attached at the end.

Introduction

So without further delay lets go ahead and start with the basic “goals” of the build. This build is not exclusively Skytoss. That is to say, your road to getting the ultimate Protoss air army does not include only making air units the whole game. To be safe against good Zerg timings you’ll need a few transitions before entering the realm of air in a safe manner. Similarly, massing exclusively air does have its down sides and because of this we’ll be focusing on a combination of units and upgrades that allow us to have an incredibly strong army while abusing the mobility Protoss has in other ways such as Speed Zealots and Warp Prisms to buy us time for this army. To make this a little more clear I will outline the “Phases” of a standard PvZ game with this build and what you will be looking to accomplish, this will also serve as an index if you’d like to search for a particular phase that is giving you trouble.

I’d like to note here that after a certain point in the game you should be adding your tech structures, upgrades, production and so forth when certain flags are set. For example: You are harassing with your phoenix and scout a hydralisk den. You know you don’t need many more void rays by this point. Therefore; work on your ground army. Because of this reactiveness in the build certain late game food references will not work very well. I will simply be giving you an idea of when you should be adding things and go more in depth with pictures in the Phase part of the text.

Depending on the map your pylon placement does matter. Close position 2 player maps I’d encourage an in base first pylon in case of 6 pool. I personally scout 9 usually to check if they make 3 sets of lings and also assure myself a scout on their 3rd base. You need to check this between 4-5min.

(It should be about 7:20 in game by now and because you’ve done nothing you should be seeing a double overlord scout by now. Because of your vision and stargate placement you’ll be able to kill 2 free overlords while the zerg scouts absolutely nothing.)

~50 * Following first phoenix you want to add 3 gates IN VISION of the zerg scouting overlords

From here everything will be “goal oriented” so you don’t stick to Food for the whole game. This helps you understand what you’re doing a lot more, and doesn’t make you freak out when you’re off by a few food later.

- Once you can start warping in units you want to add all zealots, and at max, 3 extra sentry. At this time your 4 pheonix should just about be finished so add your mothership core when you have the gas. It will be important for defending on maps such as daybreak.

- Once your 4 pheonix have finished being made you want to fly out of watch tower vision range as well as normal placement for zerg overlords straight to their queens. Your goal with these is not serious damage, just 2 queen kills to buy yourself time. Try to keep them alive as best you can as you want to be scouting hive tech timing and you can even leave one at the Z 5th later so you know when to harass. Also, as you move out with phoenix IMMEDITELY start void ray production and a robotics. You’ll be aiming to get about 4-6 voidrays depending on when you scout their hydras.

- By the time your first void ray has finished you should have finished killing the rocks for your 3rd on a map such as Akilon Wastes. Expand right after these are killed and destroy the collapsible rocks. If you’re playing on a map such as daybreak after your first warp in of zealots send one to take control over tower and take your army to your 3rd and wall around your nexus. Again, you only want zealots at this point. Your next warp in will be half at 3rd and half at natural choke to stop ling runbys. Once that is secure simply work on establishing your 3rd defenses by adding 3 gates and cannons. Get the gas running immediately once your 3rd is up.

- If you see hydralisks by this time you need to constantly warp rounds of zealots. Otherwise, you don’t need many – This will lead to floating a bit of minerals; however, it’s completely okay. You should be fine with the Nexus cannon and voidray production.

- Once your robotics finishes add 2 observers to queue to be spotters on the zerg army movement as well as a Robotics Bay. You’ll have a little extra gas due to the fact you’re only making VR and Zealots, but that’s okay! You’ll use it soon.

- Colossus range + Colossus once they’ve finished being constructed. Your goal is 4 Colossus. You should roughly have 3 Void Ray by this time. I recommend going to 6 void ray unless they went straight corruptor; in such a scenario continue VR production into the next steps. At about 4 VR Start mass zealot production from your 6 gate You’ll need zealots for securing your 4th so just dump your minerals now. Start +2 ground weapon and +1 air weapon – From this point on you will be doing ground weapons and air weapons until +3 At which time you’ll get GROUND SHIELDS and Air armor.

- Once you have your voidray production finished(~6) you’ll add a twilight council as well as a fleet beacon. And this is when the very important transitions start. You need to cannon essentially the whole front entrance to your 4th, start speed lot upgrade, and add 3 stargates all while securing your 4th. This is a lot all at once, but it times out very well for the Z timing attacks. If you have the gas add your warp prism speed now. We’ll be using them very soon. You should be at roughly 150 supply by now with your colossus, void ray, zealot army. Once you start the cannons at 4th base you no longer need more zealots unless an attack is incoming.

- If the zerg is going for a hydra/roach exclusive timing you need only VR zealots and colossus, I advise 2 tempests at most in this case as they’ll be transitioning into full corruptor soon. If they’re going for infestor hydra roach when your fleet beacon is finish add ~5 tempests as they do great work vs weak units with zealots in the front.

- As you’re securing your 4th you should be at about 3 colossus, I recommend a 4th if they have a ground army but if you’re in no danger you can stop making them and go straight into warp prisms from here. You want at least 1 active warp prism on the map, though I strongly advise 2; and practically non-stop production of them from here on out. Similarly, proxy pylons are great. This is very micro intensive because you’re teching so hard, harassing, and macroing – but you NEED to do damage(stop a zerg from getting a 5th) to buy time for the next step

- Start harassing with speed zealots/warp prism and go into your carrier production now. If they’re constantly trying to trade with you units are a priority. If you’re left alone however you can add Templar archives at this point because you are not in danger and you’re the one about to get aggressive!

- As you’re nearing max(180/200) you want to just start running the zealots you produced earlier straight to the zergs 5th base while warp prism harassing their main. Always keep ~20 food free for harassment. Add gates with your extra minerals as there is huge time between each carrier production cycle. Keep making zealots and harassing huehuehue. Likewise, use your army to clear creep when you see them come back to their main giving them less and less map presence.

- While doing this you’re going to want to expand your ultra super awesome cannon wall to your 5th base and prepare to take that. While clearing your useless supply up add Templar back at your cannon wall to start accumulating energy.

- Your goal is to have 3-4 colossus ~5 VR ~6 templar 2-3tempests(usually no need they sux)and the rest carriers. If you see mass mass corruptor only get get more VR and archons as well. They’re pretty good.

- From this point it’s just choking the zerg out. Essentially, a reversed play of ZvP in WoL. The more bases you get after your 4th slowly add more stargates in case you trade in a big fight. Just remax on the same stuff above while continuing your harassment.

I won't go too much into detail as you can just see in the replays for yourself. However, you should be using all chrono boost on probes after your expo finishes until stargate is done. At which point all is then spent on pheonix.

From there you will only spend chronoboost on Void Ray -> Colossus Production -> Upgrades -> Warp Prisms -> Carriers/final air stuff

Phase 1

super badass pictures to go along with the build order and goal orientation above - click them twice to get full screen images! :D

Hopefully this serves as a general guideline for how to safely tech to Sky Toss in HotS. If anyone finds the guide to be too cluttered in some spots or wants to modify anything feel free to send me a PM or something. I may update this with more replays at a later date depending how much I'm able to play since I start school on Monday.

Pretty cool guide. I'd take a look at Stardust's build from Hybrid Proleague on Ohana, though. + Show Spoiler +

Basically 2 Star > 6 Voids (try to kill third, but be wary of counter) > 6 Carriers > stop Carrier production > goes up to 3 base/4 Stargate mass Voidray. Lots of Cannons. Around 2 Sentries for Guardian Shields. Also you have 2 Warpgates for warping in Zealot/Sentry to block or help defend with excess minerals Then you head to Templar Tech, and add a few Gates with excess minerals.

With good control, CANNONS, and the Mothership Core you can stop Hydra timings. If you've defend sufficiently by that point, your army is too scary to attack into, and you can pursue more bases/Templar tech/Robo for Observers.

This build was pretty sweet on WoL, but it had some obvious holes. Mothership Core Overcharge and Void buffs really help with them. This build just got 10x sweeter in HotS. Not to mention the defensive potential with mobility from Recall. Plus you have the option of Tempests to deal with any kind of Mass Spore/Spine buildups, but I typically never build them with this build.

Nice guide, looks solid. But what are your actions against muta? In a case of non-muta play you just go with the whole army to defend your 3rd nexus. But with muta it can be something like harrasing your main and pressuring 3rd with lings.

If nature wanted us to talk more than listen she would have given us two mouths and one ear.

On January 07 2013 19:48 DON-ILYA wrote:Nice guide, looks solid. But what are your actions against muta? In a case of non-muta play you just go with the whole army to defend your 3rd nexus. But with muta it can be something like harrasing your main and pressuring 3rd with lings.

I'd imagine he uses the sentries to cap the third while defending mutas with stalkers, but I'm more interested to hear about his general response to mutas.

Kyo, do you rely on phoenixes, get storm out faster (maybe skipping colossus), or include more stalkers in your army?

On January 07 2013 19:48 DON-ILYA wrote:Nice guide, looks solid. But what are your actions against muta? In a case of non-muta play you just go with the whole army to defend your 3rd nexus. But with muta it can be something like harrasing your main and pressuring 3rd with lings.

I'd imagine he uses the sentries to cap the third while defending mutas with stalkers, but I'm more interested to hear about his general response to mutas.

Kyo, do you rely on phoenixes, get storm out faster (maybe skipping colossus), or include more stalkers in your army?

Played this style for a couple of days now (I think I saw a cast of whitera and tried to copy)

You already got 4 Phoenix by the time you get the first hints of Mutas, just add a fast second stargate, go double Phoenix and try to get Range. Also, I prefer 5 over 4, you can lose one and still kill off queens easily and you kill overlords faster.Also ground upgrades are pretty important, Zerg will probably rely on Lings as ground units and dump his gas inot the mutas, you want your zealots to two-shot them always.

Hmm... Played some games. Didn't face some straight muta plays at 9-11 minute mark, but it looks like mass blink stalkers into colossus might help. If zerg goes tech switch, phoenixes are completely useless. And it's always such a feeling (for me), that I need to end the game as fast as possible, coz muta can be very frustrating and a single mistake will cost you a game. Also it's harder to harass with prism against muta player.

If nature wanted us to talk more than listen she would have given us two mouths and one ear.

On January 07 2013 21:01 DON-ILYA wrote:Hmm... Played some games. Didn't face some straight muta plays at 9-11 minute mark, but it looks like mass blink stalkers into colossus might help. If zerg goes tech switch, phoenixes are completely useless. And it's always such a feeling (for me), that I need to end the game as fast as possible, coz muta can be very frustrating and a single mistake will cost you a game. Also it's harder to harass with prism against muta player.

With the new Mutas I see no other way than Phoenix. If you go for Cannon+Stalker Zerg will not lose Mutas and the ball will grow and grow, then you lose to a basetrade.

Double Phoenix requires you to have a few Observers to scout out any tech switches, obviously you still get a lot of Gateway units and can transition into colossi slowly. If you see him throwing down any sort of additional tech more often than not you can just kill him with the phoenix+gateway army.

I wonder why you open with phoenix instead of oracles.With phoenix you need to wait for 3-4 before you can do some pressure, with oracles your first one can already kill drones really well. I like just opening with 1 or 2 oracles and then going some voids unless I see spire in which case I go phoenix. With the phoenix range upgrade and the MsC doing phoenix in reaction to spire is enough imo.Oracle + some voids is much more useful for setting up your third because an oracle is actually pretty good against ling pressure. Oracle + voids is also much easier to micro in those battles as you only need to flick em on, phoenixes kind of suck agianst roach/ling pressure because they take so much care.

On January 08 2013 00:46 Markwerf wrote:I wonder why you open with phoenix instead of oracles.With phoenix you need to wait for 3-4 before you can do some pressure, with oracles your first one can already kill drones really well. I like just opening with 1 or 2 oracles and then going some voids unless I see spire in which case I go phoenix. With the phoenix range upgrade and the MsC doing phoenix in reaction to spire is enough imo.Oracle + some voids is much more useful for setting up your third because an oracle is actually pretty good against ling pressure. Oracle + voids is also much easier to micro in those battles as you only need to flick em on, phoenixes kind of suck agianst roach/ling pressure because they take so much care.

Phoenix kill air and ground unlike oracles. In that same regard, if you go oracles and you scout a spire you then have to build additional units that with this build you otherwise already have. To be honest, I hate the oracle. It's just way too fragile in the early game and if the zerg has a grasp on the situation at hand they can largely negate the damage an oracle can inflict after they are revealed - that is to say, even if you're saving your oracles over time you're not doing the damage that you're almost assured with the phoenix (queen+overlords->time factor->macro). Phoenix can be incredibly useful up until late game at which point I showed they can be used for scouting/vision check to hit timings before the zerg gets a good composition/upgrades. Late game I'd advise 2 oracles with your large air army for time warp. Until then however, I don't see the point to get a unit that is less viable than the phoenix and the VR combo which can also deny incredibly fast 4th expos if they skip on army. I guess some timings may come up in the future with oracle/gateway armies, but that's not the point of this guide :D

On January 08 2013 00:46 Markwerf wrote:I wonder why you open with phoenix instead of oracles.With phoenix you need to wait for 3-4 before you can do some pressure, with oracles your first one can already kill drones really well. I like just opening with 1 or 2 oracles and then going some voids unless I see spire in which case I go phoenix. With the phoenix range upgrade and the MsC doing phoenix in reaction to spire is enough imo.Oracle + some voids is much more useful for setting up your third because an oracle is actually pretty good against ling pressure. Oracle + voids is also much easier to micro in those battles as you only need to flick em on, phoenixes kind of suck agianst roach/ling pressure because they take so much care.

Phoenix kill air and ground unlike oracles. In that same regard, if you go oracles and you scout a spire you then have to build additional units that with this build you otherwise already have. To be honest, I hate the oracle. It's just way too fragile in the early game and if the zerg has a grasp on the situation at hand they can largely negate the damage an oracle can inflict after they are revealed - that is to say, even if you're saving your oracles over time you're not doing the damage that you're almost assured with the phoenix (queen+overlords->time factor->macro). Phoenix can be incredibly useful up until late game at which point I showed they can be used for scouting/vision check to hit timings before the zerg gets a good composition/upgrades. Late game I'd advise 2 oracles with your large air army for time warp. Until then however, I don't see the point to get a unit that is less viable than the phoenix and the VR combo which can also deny incredibly fast 4th expos if they skip on army. I guess some timings may come up in the future with oracle/gateway armies, but that's not the point of this guide :D

Considering TW doesn't hit air, is that even worth it (considering a large amount of his supply will likely be corruptors)?

On January 08 2013 00:46 Markwerf wrote:I wonder why you open with phoenix instead of oracles.With phoenix you need to wait for 3-4 before you can do some pressure, with oracles your first one can already kill drones really well. I like just opening with 1 or 2 oracles and then going some voids unless I see spire in which case I go phoenix. With the phoenix range upgrade and the MsC doing phoenix in reaction to spire is enough imo.Oracle + some voids is much more useful for setting up your third because an oracle is actually pretty good against ling pressure. Oracle + voids is also much easier to micro in those battles as you only need to flick em on, phoenixes kind of suck agianst roach/ling pressure because they take so much care.

Phoenix kill air and ground unlike oracles. In that same regard, if you go oracles and you scout a spire you then have to build additional units that with this build you otherwise already have. To be honest, I hate the oracle. It's just way too fragile in the early game and if the zerg has a grasp on the situation at hand they can largely negate the damage an oracle can inflict after they are revealed - that is to say, even if you're saving your oracles over time you're not doing the damage that you're almost assured with the phoenix (queen+overlords->time factor->macro). Phoenix can be incredibly useful up until late game at which point I showed they can be used for scouting/vision check to hit timings before the zerg gets a good composition/upgrades. Late game I'd advise 2 oracles with your large air army for time warp. Until then however, I don't see the point to get a unit that is less viable than the phoenix and the VR combo which can also deny incredibly fast 4th expos if they skip on army. I guess some timings may come up in the future with oracle/gateway armies, but that's not the point of this guide :D

Oracle + voidray combo can kill a queen just as easily as 4 phoenixes imo and an oracle can do lots of damage against a mineral line that isn't properly protected. I feel an oracle is slightly worse in pressure than a couple phoenix but the fact it builds so much faster makes it better as a first unit to go for imo. An oracle and voidray take 110 seconds to make, 4 phoenix take 140 seconds, for pressuring i vastly prefer the first two. That voidray can do the overlord hunting or join in with your oracle. In either case I don't expect to do much damage with the stargate units but scout a little, force some spores and kill some overlords. The oracle just makes it much easier to get a third as it's actually quite good at stopping lings from killing it whereas phoenixes do practically nothing there. Oracles are also just better against hydra pressure, with phoenixes you need a critical mass to lift and kill while oracles on themselves are fairly cost efficient against hydra's.

All in all I think phoenixes are only better for hunting overlords and killing/preventing muta's. The first can be done with voids too, the latter is of minimal use as you are in good shape with stargate against muta anyway as long as you don't get surprised.